Sonic Frontiers - Definitive Edition is far from 'Definitive,' but it's a solid port nonetheless

Sega had to make some hard choices in the name of Going Fast.

In my journey to play every game I possibly can on my Nintendo Switch 2, I’ve found yet another important stop. Sonic Frontiers is a game I found compelling enough to fill out the map and do all the things, something I rarely if ever bother to do. Cruising around the islands, hitting all the floating puzzle/platforming gimmicks, completing objectives in Cyber Space stages, and fighting robots with Sonic’s new rolodex of air combos just hit the spot in ways I wasn’t expecting. As a handheld enthusiast I would’ve loved to tackle this adventure on Switch instead of Steam, but alas, the usual story applied. Fuzzy visuals, unstable frame rate. That’s a dealbreaker, especially for a game mostly about the joys of blasting around wide, open spaces. It’s the “Blue Blur,” not the “Everything Blur,” you know what I mean?

Oddly enough, after Sonic the Hedgehog’s bizarre 35th birthday livestream (there was lots of YouTuber yelling, the Ninja Turtles showed up, mascot suits were given Walmart cupcakes, it was a whole thing), Sega more or less shadow-dropped a Switch 2 port. Popped up out of nowhere at retailers too, before it was even announced. Wild. Anyway, this port is being branded as the “Definitive Edition,” as it comes with all the DLC and everything out of the box. Of course, all that DLC was free anyway, so it’s kind of a moot selling point. But hey, it doesn’t need to be downloaded separately, I guess? The real point of interest is how Sonic Frontiers looks and feels on Switch 2, regardless of the bells and whistles or lack thereof. And while there are what I’d consider meaningful compromises when you hold the software up to the hardware, the end result is a port I’d consider fully playable and fun.

Thankfully, Sonic Frontiers on Switch 2 offers a Graphics and Performance mode toggle, letting me choose between a 30 fps and 60 fps frame rate target. If you’re playing docked, you’ll get full 1080p in Graphics, and 720p in Performance. The frame rates generally stay on target, but don’t maintain them consistently. In Handheld mode, you get less stable performance, and regardless of which mode you choose, you’ll be facing a dynamic resolution situation, with Performance mode even shifting down to 480p at times. The upscaling is fine, and for a game that moves so fast so often you won’t always be sitting there staring at still enough images to notice. But it’s still a bummer to have Sonic Frontiers still looking so hazy on a portable platform boasting a 1080p panel.

So if you stack this port up to, say, Digimon Story Time Strangers, it doesn’t look so hot. You have to grant these are totally different games doing different things and built with different tools, but the raw numbers are still a bummer. At the same time, this is a significant bump from the previous available Nintendo version of Sonic Frontiers, which was only worthwhile if you literally had no other choice. It’s not as sharp as I’d like it to be, but it’s still a massive improvement. And it’s enough of an improvement to feel like a bonafide version of Sonic Frontiers, rather than an also-ran. After all, it’s not like the other versions don’t also have problems! You’ll still see things like pop-up and funky blurring on PC. I like this game a lot (and the Shacknews review is one of the highest given), but it’s no technical marvel by any stretch.

Despite having earned all the Platform-Specific Achievementy Thingies the first time around, I never actually came back to Sonic Frontiers for the post-launch DLC, which includes new story content and more playable characters (no Shadow for some reason, which seems wild in 2026 but was more or less normal at the time). The biggest question I had coming in was whether or not I’d fiddle with the Switch 2 version then go back to PC, or stick with the new portable port to replay the whole thing before finally catching up. And while the port isn’t perfect, I’m comfortable with saying I’m down with the latter option. I’ve had a lot of fun replaying Frontiers so far; the compromises are much worse on paper than in motion. That said, if you already have the Switch version there’s no upgrade path, so you may be better off grabbing it elsewhere during a sale if that’s an option for you. There’s plenty of nuance here, so don’t just charge ahead without looking, even if that’s what Sonic would probably do.

Sonic Frontiers - Definitive Edition is available now for the Nintendo Switch 2. A code was provided by the publisher for this article.

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